Operation Juno

Operation Juno was a German sortie to the North Sea during the Norwegian Campaign. The most notable engagement of the operation was German battleships and sinking the British aircraft carrier and its two escorting destroyers. Several Allied vessels were sunk in other engagements.

Operation

The German ships involved were the battleships and , the heavy cruiser and the destroyers , , and .

The operation began on 8 June 1940, as an attack on Harstad to relieve pressure on the German garrison at Narvik. After refuelling at Jan Mayen Island the operation became redundant as the Allies were evacuating from Norway. The German commander, Admiral Wilhelm Marschall, took the initiative to seek and destroy the Allied transports. The troop transport ''Orama'', the tanker ''Oil Pioneer'' and the mine-sweepeing trawler were sunk. Marschall ordered the ''Admiral Hipper'' and the destroyers to Trondheim, where they arrived in the morning of 9 June. The next day, ''Admiral Hipper'' attempted to leave Trondheim but was prevented by the sighting of a British submarine.

Sinking of HMS ''Glorious''

As the most notable engagement of Operation Juno, ''Scharnhorst'' and ''Gneisenau'' sank the British aircraft carrier (Captain Guy D'Oyly-Hughes, a submarine specialist with only ten months' experience of aircraft carrier operations) and her escorting destroyers and on 8 June at around 69° N off Norway. On the night of 7/8 June, ''Glorious'', took on board ten 263 Squadron Gloster Gladiators and eight Hawker Hurricanes of 46 Squadron Royal Air Force, the first landing of modern aircraft without arrestor hooks on a carrier. These had flown from land bases to keep them from being destroyed in the evacuation. ''Glorious'' was part of a troop convoy headed for Scapa Flow, also including the carrier .

In the early hours of 8 June, ''Glorious'' requested permission to proceed independently at a faster speed. According to Alan Beith, this was because D'Oyly-Hughes was impatient to hold a court-martial of his Commander, Flying, J. B. Heath and Lieutenant Commander Evelyn Slessor.
HMS Glorious
'' House of Commons Debate 28 January 1999 vol 324 cc564-76. Heath had refused an order to attack certain shore targets on the grounds that his aircraft were unsuited to the task and had been left behind in Scapa to await trial. It has been noted by Beith that ''Glorious'' was in a low state of readiness. The high crow's nest look-out position was not manned, leaving the observation task to the destroyers with much lower observation angles. Only 12 out of 18 of boilers were in use, so she could not develop full speed rom to as fast as was required.

D'Oyly-Hughes failed to launch aircraft for a Combat Air Patrol around the carrier group, reportedly to give the aircrews a rest. The previous commander always had some aircraft in the air. Had he done so, ''Glorious'' might have been able to spot incoming threats or have been able to either turn and run or fight. No aircraft were even on the deck for a quick launch. In her hangars were ten Hurricanes and ten Gladiators from the RAF, her nine Sea Gladiators and five Swordfish.

While sailing through the Norwegian Sea, the carrier and ''Acasta'' and ''Ardent'' were intercepted by the German battleships ''Scharnhorst'' and ''Gneisenau''. The carrier and her escorts were sunk in two hours, roughly west of Harstad, with the loss of 1,519 men; there were only 45 survivors. The survivor from ''Acasta'' was rescued by the Norwegian steam merchant ship ''Borgund'' which also saved 38 men from one of ''Glorious lifeboats. All 39 men saved by ''Borgund'' were set ashore at Tórshavn in the Faroe Islands on 14 June.

''Scharnhorst''s salvoes hit ''Glorious'' at 16:32, before the latter's torpedo-bombers could be launched. ''Scharnhorst''s second salvo, at 16:38, struck ''Glorious'' at the extreme range of , one of the longest range hits recorded. A salvo from ''Gneisenau'' subsequently hit the bridge. The destroyers had started to lay smoke to protect ''Glorious'' and themselves. ''Ardent'' and ''Acasta'' made continual attempts to launch torpedoes at the German ships. At about 17:39, ''Scharnhorst'' was hit by one of four torpedoes launched by ''Acasta''. Fifty sailors were killed, of water flooded into her and her aft turret was put out of action.

''Ardent'' was sunk at around 17:20 having made seven attacks with torpedoes. The approximate sinking position based on last transmission from ''Glorious'' is . Marschall, aboard ''Gneisenau'', ordered ''Scharnhorst'' to cease fire and wasting ammunition on ''Glorious''. At this point, ''Gneisenau'' was closer to ''Glorious'' than ''Scharnhorst''.Operation Juno
/ref>

Aftermath

''Scharnhorst'' and ''Gneisenau'' made for Trondheim for repairs. Due to their exposed position they were not able to stop to rescue survivors of any of the ships. On 13 June, 15 Fleet Air Arm Blackburn Skua bombers from ''Ark Royal'' attacked ''Scharnhorst'' in harbour. One bomb struck her for the loss of eight Skuas. The Skua was withdrawn from operations in 1941 and retired in 1945.Dell, John
"Skuas Over Norway."
''Dinger's Aviation Pages''. Retrieved: 5 May 2009. As a result of the action, 1,519 men on board ''Glorious'', ''Acasta'' and ''Ardent'' were killed, exceeding any of the other great British naval disasters of the war, along the three warships, two RAF fighter squadrons were lost. Damage from the torpedo attacks forced ''Scharnhorst'' to return to Trondheim for emergency repairs, reaching Kiel on 23 June to go into dry dock. She remained there under repair for most of the rest of 1940. Although ''Glorious'' was a great loss, the withdrawal of these two powerful German warships allowed the remaining Allied convoys to reach Britain with a greatly reduced threat.

See also

* List of Kriegsmarine ships
* List of classes of British ships of World War II

References

Further reading

*

External links

Destruction of the glorious on scharnhorst-class.dk

{{DEFAULTSORT:Juno, Operation
Norwegian campaign
Battles of World War II involving Germany
Battle of the Atlantic
Naval battles of World War II involving Germany
Naval battles of World War II involving Norway
Naval battles and operations of World War II involving the United Kingdom
Naval battles and operations of the European theatre of World War II
June 1940 events